“Were there any choices you didn’t like?”
“Yes,” he said. “I scrapped coconut and lime.”
“After you are done with the cake, we’ll discuss flower selection and colors,” Roman said.
I would strangle him. “Roman, I have to dance until Zoe can record the rest of the mystical writing on my skin, and then I have to train to work my magic. So no. Not doing it.”
Roman heaved a sigh and looked at Mary. “Do you see what I have to put up with?”
“Roman, if I don’t do this, Atlanta will be destroyed.”
“Atlanta is always getting destroyed,” Mary said. “Eat some cake. It will make you feel better.”
“Before I forget,” Roman said. “Sienna said to tell you to beware . . .” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Crocuta crocuta spelaea. Apparently it’s going to try to murder you. Don’t you want to eat some delicious cake before you die a horrible death?”
I sat on the stage and covered my face with my hands.
Curran’s hand rested on my shoulder. “Are you okay, baby?”
“No. Give me a minute.”
“That’s understandable,” Roman said. “Take your time.”
“What did you say it was that was going to murder me?”
“Crocuta crocuta spelaea.”
“Crocuta” usually referred to a hyena, but I couldn’t remember any hyena with “spelaea” attached to it.
“Cave hyena,” Ascanio said. “Also known as Ice Age spotted hyena.”
All of us looked at him.
He rolled his eyes. “I’m a member of Clan Bouda. I know our family tree.”
“How big?” Curran asked.
“Pretty big,” Ascanio said. “It mostly preyed on wild horses. They estimate about two hundred twenty-five pounds or so on average.”
Of course. Why wouldn’t my future have a vicious prehistoric hyena in it?
I exhaled and looked at Roman. “What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?”
“You have to make all the wedding decisions,” Roman said. “You have to select the cake, the colors for the ceremony, the flowers for your bouquet, and you have to stand for a second dress fitting tomorrow at eight o’clock. You also have to approve the guest list and the seating chart.”
I looked at Curran.
“I can take the chart,” he offered.
“Thank you.” I looked at Roman. “I do all this and you stop bugging me?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a deal.”
“Excellent.” He rubbed his hands, looking every inch an evil pagan priest. “I love it when everything comes together.”
? ? ?
THE RECORDING OF the writing on my body was done. The cake would have alternating tiers; the first would be chocolate cake with a white chocolate mousse filling and white chocolate buttercream, and the second would be white chocolate with raspberry mousse and white chocolate frosting. They told me I could have whatever I wanted, and if it was the last cake I would ever eat, I wanted it to be as chocolate as it could get.
The colors were green, pink, and lavender, because when I closed my eyes and thought of a happy place, I saw the Water Gardens with lotuses blooming in the water. I told Roman that I wanted wildflowers for my bouquet. He dutifully wrote it down.
“Thank you,” I told Saiman, as he packed away Dave Miller’s things.
“We’re even,” he said.
“We are.”
He nodded and left.
Roman left too, taking Mary Louise with him. I dismissed Ascanio for the day after we put the desks back where they belonged and then waited for him to be out of earshot.
“He’s gone,” Curran told me.
I laid the drawings out on the floor.
My aunt appeared before me and looked at the pages.
She frowned. “This is the high dialect. The language of kings. Why would he . . . Switch these two around for me.”
I moved the two sheets she pointed at.
My aunt peered at the drawings. We waited.
“Moron.” Erra rolled her head back and laughed. “Oh, that sentimental fool! This is what happens when a man is thinking with his dick.”
Curran and I looked at each other.
“It’s a poem. A beautiful, exquisite love poem to your mother and you, written in the old tongue, in the high dialect, and fit for a king. The scholars of Shinar would weep from sheer joy and the poets would murder themselves out of jealousy. He tells your mother she is his life, his sun, his stars, the life-bringing light of his universe. I’d translate for you but your language is too clunky. He goes on about all the sacrifices he would make for her and how much he adores his beloved and how you are the ultimate expression of their love.”
“He still killed her,” I said.
“Yes, he did. Lovesick or not, he’s still your father.” She shook her head. “He inscribed all this on you while you were in the womb. The skill required to accomplish this without injuring the child and with such perfection . . . Your father truly was the jewel of our age. He is a horror, but still a jewel. Here is the important part.”
My aunt pointed down at the piece of paper.
“And all the princes of the land would kiss the earth beneath her feet—that would be you—and should she fall, I will fall with her, for we are as one, and the despair would dry the spring of life within me. Do you understand? You are bound together. He can’t kill you. If he does, he will die with you.”
My brain screeched to a halt. There was no way.
Curran laughed.
The two of us looked at him.
“It’s not funny,” I told him.
“It’s hilarious.”
“Will you cut it out?” I sat down in my chair, trying to process things. My brain was having real difficulties digesting this.
Curran’s grin was vicious. “I’ve been wondering why the hell he invested all that time into Hugh and then threw him away. Hugh almost killed you. Your dad was sitting in his Swan Palace feeling himself inch toward death’s door as you died of exposure, and he got so scared, he got rid of Hugh so it wouldn’t happen again. It was a knee-jerk reaction.”
“This can’t be right. I almost died more times than I can remember.”
“No, you’ve been hurt more times than you can remember,” Curran said. “Mishmar was the closest you’ve come to a physical death. Nasrin didn’t think you would make it. She told me to make my peace.”
“I almost bled to death in a cage when the rakshasas grabbed me.”
“No. You passed out, but Doolittle said there was a solid chance of recovery from the start. Mishmar was the worst.”
“Is that what you do?” Erra asked. “You keep track of the times she almost dies?”
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to find yourself some shapeshifter heifer and have a litter of kittens, rather than deal with all this?”
I thought we were over this.
“Well, if I’m banging a heifer, technically the kids would have an equal chance of being calves and kittens,” Curran said. “So it might be a litter or a small herd.”
“If Curran and I have a litter of kittens, will you babysit?”
Erra stared at me like I had slapped her.
“They will be very cute kittens,” Curran said.
I smiled at the City Eater. “Meow, meow.”
“You won’t have any kittens if my brother is allowed to roam free,” Erra snarled. “You came to me, remember that.”